Welcome to the Living Hope Church Missionary site. The LHC Family is involved in both home and foreign mission work and is proud to have LHC family members out in the fields of harvest. This blog chronicles the missionaries and mission work of Living Hope Church. LHC has supported missions around the world financialy, prayerfully and sacrificialy. We invite you to follow our blog and see the mission work being done by LHC.

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Thursday, October 9, 2014

Jealous God

For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.Deuteronomy 4:24

Our God is a jealous God. This idea has been rattling around
inside my head since earlier this summer. Pastor Mike spoke to the youth group
about our jealous God.

He is jealous for me, loves like
a hurricane, I am a tree

Bending beneath the weight of His
wind and mercy

When all of a sudden I am unaware
of these afflictions

Eclipsed by glory and I realize
just how beautiful You are

And how great Your affections are
for me

David Crowder - How He Loves Lyrics

I have known that God is a jealous God for a long time – the
bible has multiple scriptures and references to the jealousy of God – but I had
never really stopped to consider the deeper implications or meaning of God’s jealousy.
Jealousy is usually thought of as a negative emotion, wanting or envying
something someone else has and wishing it were our own. The other meaning of
jealous is something closer to zealous. It is like a man who is jealous for his
wife or a mother who is jealous for her children. This is the jealousy God has.
A zeal and love for something that is uniquely His. A passion for His own. God
is jealous of His name – His majesty, His authority and His holiness – and He
commands us to place nothing else before Him. This is also the jealousy God has
for us. God is jealous for our undivided attention, love and worship. Just as
God jealously protects His name, He also protects us and pulls us closer and
closer to Him.

This has been intensifying for me as we have gotten closer to coming on
this trip to Kenya.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that
whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.John 3:16

God wants to have a relationship with every person, everywhere.
He made us and He made a way for us to have a relationship with Him. God is an all-consuming
fire and He wants all of us to be consumed with Him. The people of our church,
the people of our community and the people here in Kenya. Rich people, poor
people, people who have much and people who have nothing at all. God wants to
be in an all-consuming relationship with everyone. As I have thought more and
more about the jealousy of God I have started to see His passion for us – all of
us. He is jealous for me, and just as jealous for everyone.

Today we will be travelling to Njorro to work with David and
Ann Kinyanjui. David and Ann are passionately caring for the children of
Njorro. This will be our first day of ministry. We will spend the next few days
working alongside David and Ann to feed, teach and love the children they
minister to everyday. I am excited, honored, and humbled to take part in the work God is doing
through the Knyanjuis in Njorro.